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Royal Mail Provides a Model for USPS

Written by: Dana Blankenhorn09/27/13 - 10:31 AM EDT

Tickers in this article:
FDX UPS

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- While in Sheffield, England recently, I decided to mail our vacation presents back home rather than hauling them on the plane. So we visited the Royal Mail.

We didn't go to a stale government office, but to a brightly lit section of a local department store, which is open during store hours, not just during mail hours. The people there were very friendly. Even the other customers were nice.

All this was in place long before the government decided to sell off about half of the operation, valuing it at $4-$5 billion according to the BBC (although some estimates are higher), and retaining a stake of about 40%.

The Royal Mail, it is said, is even profitable.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Postal Service is planning yet another price hike, this one to 49 cents per first-class stamp. Like previous hikes, this has to go before government regulators. The mail service said it needs the $2 billion hike because it will lose $6 billion this year. It will also want to cut the number of offices, and reduce delivery schedules.

(Although the USPS is an independent agency of the federal government, for decades it has received very little in taxpayer money. It receives $100 million a year -- less than 1% of its annual budget -- from Washington to cover free mailing privileges for the blind and overseas voters, according to Politifact.)

The contrast between my local post office and the Royal Mail offices could not be more stark. The services here are very limited, the office itself is dusty, the employees concerned mostly about their jobs and pensions.

All this changed my own mind about privatizing our postal service. Now I'm all for it.

This has nothing to do with cutting workers' wages or reducing services. Just the opposite.

A private U.S. Postal Service could dramatically expand the range of services it offers. It could sell off much of its real estate and rent offices in local department stores. It could do more than just process passport applications and sell money orders . It could become a bank or a small business' international trade office.

Federal Express and UPS could use that competition.

These two big shippers now have retail arms. FedEx bought the old Kinko's copying chain and UPS bought Mail Boxes Etc. But frankly, those offices are about as friendly as the post office. They're nothing like the Royal Mail.